First,
Vanessa Kelly brought readers The Renegade Royals. Now, in a delightfully witty
new series, she introduces The Improper Princesses—three young women descended
from royalty, each bound for her own thrilling adventure . . .

Despite being the illegitimate
daughter of a prince, Gillian Dryden is happily ignorant of all social graces.
After growing up wild in Italy, Gillian has been ordered home to England to
find a suitable husband. And Charles Valentine Penley, the excessively proper,
distractingly handsome Duke of Leverton, has agreed to help transform her from
a willful tomboy to a blushing debutante.

Powerful and sophisticated, Charles
can make or break reputations with a well-placed word. But his new protégée,
with her habit of hunting bandits and punching earls, is a walking scandal. The
ton is aghast . . . but Charles is thoroughly intrigued. Tasked with taking the
hoyden in hand, he longs to take her in his arms instead. Can such an
outrageous attraction possibly lead to a fairytale ending?

The next thing Gillian knew, he was
shoving her down onto the sand. He came down on top of her, mashing her flat.

It took her a moment to catch her breath,
since there wasn’t a particle of air between them. She was certainly becoming
intimately acquainted with various parts of Leverton’s impressive anatomy.

“Who is it?” She felt a spurt of hope.
Perhaps some of the smugglers had returned. Now that Teddy was safely out of
the way, Leverton might even help her track them. They might not see eye to eye
on everything, but he would be furious that smugglers were trespassing on his
lands.

“Wait,” he breathed out.

He cautiously lifted his head to peer over
the rise of sand between them and the beach. The sound of a cantering horse,
hooves thudding into the hard-packed flats, quickly grew and then faded away
down the beach. Leverton still didn’t move, his attention focused in the
direction of the mysterious rider.

“Could you please get off me,” she finally
said. “You are completely squashing me.”

He looked down at her and frowned, as if
surprised to see her there. Gillian raised a sardonic brow.

“I beg your pardon,” he murmured, as if
they were on the dance floor and he’d simply trod on her foot.

He rolled off, but kept an arm slung
across her waist. Gillian tried to push it away, but it felt like a tree trunk
was pinning her down. She let out an aggrieved sigh and dropped her head back
onto the sand.

“Whoever it was, he’s long gone,” she
said. “Why are we still lying here?”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Leverton
answered. “I think it’s now safe to get up.”

“I should hope so. I feel like I’ve spent
half the night lying on this blasted beach.” With nothing to show for it but
sand in her breeches and an irate duke.

Leverton rolled into a crouch and then
smoothly rose. He reached down a hand to pull her up. “And whose fault is
that?”

Gillian pulled the tails of her coat back
in place and started brushing herself off. “Not mine. If you hadn’t shown up, I
could have tracked the smugglers back to their lair. That, as you must admit,
would have been very helpful.”

“Their lair? Good God, you’ve been reading
too many lurid novels. Wait, I forgot,” he said, holding up a hand. “You
actually believe you’re living in one. You fancy yourself some sort of heroine,
dashing about, trying to right all the wrongs of the world.”

“No, I fancy myself as the hero.” She
wiggled a leg, hoping to at least shake some of the sand from her backside down
to her boot. “The heroines are always moaning and falling down in a faint,
waiting for the men to rescue them. I don’t have time for that sort of
nonsense.”

“That is quite obvious to anyone who knows
you. Well, I think we’ve both had enough larking about for one night. Are you
ready to go, Miss Dryden, or shall we wait to see the sunrise?”

“There’s no need for sarcasm, Leverton,”
she said as she bent to retrieve her cap. It had fallen off when he tackled
her. “And you still haven’t said if you recognized the rider. It wasn’t one of
the smugglers, was it?”

“No, it was a riding officer, on patrol.
He was obviously too late to be of any use.”

“Why didn’t you flag him down?” she
snapped.

“As I just said, there was no point,” he
replied with exaggerated patience. “The smugglers were long gone.”

“No point? He was on a horse. He could have easily caught up
with them. What were you thinking to just let him go by like that?” Her mother
would be horrified at the way Gillian was speaking to him, but she couldn’t
help it. Leverton had let another opportunity slip away. What was wrong with
the blasted man?

“I was thinking I didn’t want to expose
you to more scurrilous gossip,” he said, clearly growing irate again. “I am
trying to protect your reputation, Miss Dryden. Explaining your presence here
in the middle of the night to a riding officer would hardly assist me in
achieving that goal.”

“I don’t give a hang about my reputation,”
she shouted. “That was our best chance to find my jewels, and you ruined it.”

“It is blindingly obvious that you care
not a whit for your reputation. You take every occasion to be outrageous, to
behave like a—”

He bit off whatever insult it was he was
going to level. Then he sucked in a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself.

“Gillian,” he said.

She waved an impatient hand, ignoring the
way her chest seemed to twist and tighten. His tone practically reeked with
disdain. “Light-skirt? Doxy? Which is it? Go ahead and say it if it makes you
feel better. It won’t bother me in the slightest.”

It was a lie. She’d spent a lifetime
learning to ignore the acidic little jabs and the steady drip of smirking
insults, but the pain they’d caused was nothing compared to knowing he felt the
same. It seemed to hollow her out, leaving an empty darkness that could never
be filled.

“I wasn’t going to say any such thing,” he
said. “I never would.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Now, can we
please go?” She needed to move, to get away from him. Tears stung her eyes, and
she could feel her throat going thick. The notion that she would cry over
this—over him—was simply appalling. Gillian hadn’t truly cried since the death
of her stepfather. That Leverton had the power to call forth such a dreadful
sign of weakness infuriated her.

Perversely, that made her want to cry even
more. What in God’s name was wrong with her?

She tried to shove past him again, but he
stepped in front of her and grasped her shoulders.

“Let me go.”

“Not until you let me apologize,” he said
in a gravelly voice.

She tried to wriggle out from under his
grip. His gloved fingers held her tight.

“I don’t need any apologies from the likes
of y-you.” Gillian almost fainted in horror to hear the break in her voice.
She’d called him a coward, and yet here she was acting like a silly female with
the vapors. As if his words truly had the power to harm her.

Sadly, it appeared they did.

She sniffed as she tried to steady
herself. Unfortunately, one exceedingly defiant sob seemed intent on forcing
itself out.

Damn
and blast.

“Are you crying, Gillian?” Leverton asked
in a voice of soft amazement.

“Don’t be ridiculous. As if I would cry
over something as stupid as this.” As if she would cry over the mistaken
assumption that he liked her, when apparently he did not.

“Then what is this I see on your cheek?”
He gently brushed a gloved finger over her face. “Yes, there is a tear,
sparkling like a jewel. How extraordinary.”

“Don’t you dare make fun of me.” She
glared up at him, rather a tricky feat when one was trying not to bawl.

He barked out a laugh. “Believe me, I find
this situation anything but amusing. Painful would be a more apt description.”

That dried her tears. “If you don’t let me
go this instant, I will make you very sorry. And I don’t give a damn if you are
a bloody duke.” He wouldn’t be the first man she’d kneed in the bollocks, and
she didn’t suppose he’d be the last.

“Right now, I don’t give a damn either.” And
with that, Leverton hauled Gillian up on her toes and covered her mouth in a
fierce, smoldering kiss.

Vanessa Kelly is an award-winning author who was named by Booklist, the
review journal of the American Library Association, as one of the “New Stars of
Historical Romance.” Her Regency-set historical romances have been nominated
for awards in a number of contests, and her second book, Sex and The Single
Earl, won the prestigious Maggie Medallion for Best Historical Romance. Her
current series, The Renegade Royals is a national bestseller. Vanessa also
writes USA Today bestselling contemporary romance with her husband, under the
pen name of VK Sykes.